Sunday, 16 April 2000

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Lat Mailer/Chat Reminder for Sunday, April 16, 2000
Date: 4/15/2000
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For all of you desperately working on your (U.S.) income taxes at the last minute, we'll dispense with the chit-chat and get right to it.

This week's links can be found in our news and picture features.

In the news:

• Latvia erects memorial to U.S. Airmen
• Stalinist hunt, an Estonian perspective [plus links]
• Russian ambassador to Latvia not allowed to meet Kononov
• Russia's Putin approves Kononov's citizenship bid
• Latvia PM Skele quits, new government may take one month
• Russian envoy stunned by silence over human rights abuses in Latvia, Estonia
• Baltic Sea Summit ends
• NATO Supreme Commander Clark says NATO expansion good for Russia too

harkens to the past and to spring.

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Latvian Link

From the news:

Institute of Baltic Studies : http://www.ibs.ee/index.html.en
Estonian Embassy in Washington: http://www.estemb.org

From this week's picture:

Latvian Exiles' Calendar, 1947

News

Latvia Erects Memorial to US Airmen
    LIEPAJA, Latvia (AP) — The city of Liepaja unveiled a memorial Saturday to honor 10 U.S. airmen who were shot down by the Soviet military 50 years ago when Latvia was part of the Soviet Union.
    The aircraft was shot down on April 8, 1950, while testing the effectiveness of the Soviet Union's westernmost air defense system; it is believed to have been the first American spy plane shot down by the Soviets during the Cold War.
    Washington declared in 1951 that all 10 airmen were presumed dead, but investigators from the U.S. Defense Department, with help from Latvian historians, are still searching for clues about their exact fate.
    Soviet media reported the crash at the time, but the cleanup was shrouded in secrecy. No bodies were ever released by Soviet or Russian authorities, and the precise location of the crash, somewhere near Liepaja, has never been revealed.
    Liepaja is 140 miles west of the capital, Riga.
    After the 1991 Soviet collapse, declassified files suggested that eight of the men may have survived and been jailed. Relatives have asked Moscow for details.
    The Saturday ceremony on the Latvian coast — near where the airmen are believed to have perished in the Baltic Sea — was broadcast live via satellite to relatives of the airmen in the United States.
    Kaspars Ruklis, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Latvia, thanked Latvian officials in Liepaja for the memorial, which includes the names of the men etched onto a plaque.
    "It's a way to honor the men who died and a nice gesture to their widows and children," he said.
    In total, 90 U.S. servicemen disappeared in 10 separate incidents over Soviet airspace during the Cold War, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
    © 2000 The Associated Press

By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer
    TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — On June 14, 1941, young Lennart Meri awoke to the sound of combat boots stomping down the hallway. Soviet soldiers had just entered his house to deport him and his family.
    Lennart, his mother, father and younger brother were given 20 minutes to pack, then were trucked to a waiting train and herded inside. It was a wood-paneled cattle car, fitted with iron bars and a hole cut in the floor to serve as a latrine.
    The train car was already packed with women and children, Meri, now 71 and president of Estonia since 1992, recalled in an interview. The human cargo was bound for Siberia, and some wouldn't return alive.
    Virtually everyone in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania can tell of at least one close relative who was deported or of being deported themselves in the years following the 1940 Soviet occupation of the three Baltic republics.
    But unlike in the other 12 former Soviet republics, such reminiscences aren't only the stuff of history here. They are witness testimony as prosecutors pursue alleged agents of Stalinist terror.
    Estonia has convicted four Stalinist agents in the past year. Latvia has convicted three men, and an 85-year-old former secret police officer, Yevgeny Savenko, is facing trial for allegedly signing arrest orders that led to the deportation and execution of dozens of Latvians.
    There is widespread support for the proceedings among Estonians.
    "Sometimes I think, 'Let it be,'" said Salme Kulvere, who was deported in 1949 when she was 16. "But when I think about how truly horrible it was in deportation, I don't see how these crimes can just be swept under the carpet."
    The trials have infuriated Russia. Many Russians say the three Baltic states are seeking revenge against elderly, ailing men who often hold Russian passports.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin said Latvia's recent conviction of Vasily Kononov, a 77-year-old Russian citizen considered by some to be a Soviet war hero, was a cruel and unjust verdict against an "old and seriously sick man."
    Kononov was sentenced to six years in prison for executing nine civilians while he was a Soviet guerrilla during Germany's 1941-44 occupation of Latvia. He claimed the civilians got caught in cross fire during a battle with Nazi troops.
    Baltic officials dismiss Russia's criticism, saying their huge neighbor has failed to honestly confront atrocities committed by Russians during Stalin's reign.
    Eerik Kross, who oversees the Estonian unit hunting old Soviet agents, pointed to the 1946 Nuremberg Charter and the 1949 Geneva Convention. With Nazi crimes in mind, Stalin helped draft both.
    "But if you read these conventions, there's no doubt they do apply to Stalin's crimes," Kross said. "This is not about revenge. We are obliged to do what we are doing."
    Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar said the proceedings have been fair and he has no pity for the former agents.
    "None of these men have ever said, 'I understand what I did was wrong and I'm sorry,'" Laar said. "They hint others did the deed or that they were just following orders. So, no, I don't have any sympathy."
    The Baltic states have been accused of showing less zeal in going after alleged Nazis.
    Hundreds of Nazi collaborators were tried and executed in the Baltic states by Soviet authorities after the war, but none have been convicted since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union brought independence to the region.
    Laar said the Baltic states are trying to redress an imbalance.
    "While the world has recognized the horrors of Nazism, people haven't understood the horrors of communism," he said. "These prosecutions are giving communist crimes the attention they deserve."
    Meri, whose family managed to return from Siberia after World War II, said the most important reason for the trials was to shed light on the Stalinist period.
    "We must fully understand this aspect of our past — to be absolutely sure that it is not repeated in the lives of my children and grandchildren," he said.

On the Net:
    Institute of Baltic Studies: http://www.ibs.ee/index.html.en
    Estonian Embassy in Washington: http://www.estemb.org
    © 2000 The Associated Press

Russian ambassador to Latvia not allowed to meet Kononov
    MOSCOW, April 11 (Itar-Tass) — The Latvian authorities have rejected the request of the Russian ambassador to Latvia to let him meet Vasili Kononov, veteran antifascist, who has been kept in prison for more than a year, says a report of the Russian Foreign Ministry received by Tass on Tuesday.
    According to the report, previously the Latvian authorities did not allow the Moscow mayor's office to send to Riga a group of Russian physicians for examining Kononov's health and giving medical aid to him. Several days ago the Russian government forwarded a similar request to Latvia, but the answer again was No.
    "Such an attitude to Vasili Kononov, 77-year-old war veteran, whose only fault consists in an honest fulfilment of his soldier's duty in the struggle against fascism during the Second World War, is evidence of a total disrespect by the Latvian authorities for the generally recognized principles of humaneness," the report said.
    rom/ast © 1996-2000 ITAR-TASS

Russia's Putin approves Kononov's citizenship bid
    MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin has approved an application for citizenship by Vasili Kononov, a World War Two Soviet partisan recently jailed in Latvia, the Kremlin said Wednesday.
    Kononov has been the focus of tense exchanges between Russia and Latvia, which has jailed the 77-year-old for six years for killing nine citizens in 1944.
    A Kremlin spokesman said by telephone that he could not say when Kononov would officially receive his Russian passport and other documents.
    Kononov's conviction and a parade through the Latvian capital Riga last month by veterans who served in a Latvian Waffen SS unit have enraged Russian authorities and war veterans' organizations.
    Moscow has also bitterly criticized what it says is discrimination against Latvia's large ethnic Russian minority.
    The Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 under the German-Soviet treaty carving up much of Eastern Europe. They regained their independence in 1991.
    Many Latvians fought on the Nazi side to help end the Soviet occupation, during which thousands of residents of all three Baltic states were deported to labor camps in Siberia.
    Kononov has appealed his conviction and Russia has asked the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help press the Latvian authorities to release him.
    Latvian President Vaira Vike Freiberga turned down a request by Putin to intervene, saying all war crimes had to be punished regardless of the ideology for which they were committed.
    © 2000 Reuters Ltd.

Latvia PM Skele quits, new government may take one month
By Alan Crosby
    RIGA, April 12 (Reuters) — Latvian Prime Minister Andris Skele resigned on Wednesday after his coalition government collapsed in a privatisation dispute, and politicians said it could be a month before a new administration was in place.
    Analysts said that unless fresh faces and ideas were brought in, privatisation might grind to a halt, harming the economy of the former Soviet Baltic republic struggling to recover from recession.
    But Skele's surprise announcement had no immediate impact on markets. Share prices rose slightly and the lat currency held steady.
    "Today I will submit my resignation to the state president and talks on the creation of a new government will start," he told a news conference.
    Skele, who would have faced a confidence vote on Thursday, has been at loggerheads with a junior coalition party called For Fatherland and Freedom after he fired Economy Minister Vladimirs Makarovs, a member of that party.
    Makarovs had voided the signing rights of privatisation agency chief Janis Naglis, effectively stripping him of the power to run the agency. Skele said the move had undermined earlier cabinet decisions.
    Naglis and Skele favoured speedy privatisation of firms still in state hands and Makarovs had complained that the agency needlessly sacrificed price for speed.
    With Skele leaving, the way is clear for his Peoples' Party, Latvia's Way and Fatherland to build a new cabinet.

    BROADER COALITION POSSIBLE
    Latvia's Way Chairman Andrejs Pantelejevs said talks would begin immediately on forming a government, and the small centrist New Party might be added to broaden the coalition.
    He added his party — widely expected to be given the prime minister's post — had a list of candidates including five ministers, Foreign Minister Indulis Berzins among them, in the previous government.
    "We will have to be quick about nominating a candidate for prime minister, but...it will take at least until after Easter to form a government," he said, adding he hoped a cabinet would be in place before mid-May.
    The Peoples' Party holds 24 of 100 seats in parliament. Latvia's Way has 21, Fatherland 16 and the New Party eight.
    Analysts said that while long-term goals such as European Union and NATO membership would be little affected, the economy could be hurt if investment, needed to speed up industrial restructuring, was slowed.
    "Politically, I don't expect many changes, I doubt we will go through a period of great instability," one local analyst told Reuters. "But with the same parties in place, it's tough to see how the problems facing Skele's government will be solved."
    Another analyst, London-based Dafne Ter-Sakarian of the research house HILFE, said the change might amount to little more than a high-profile cabinet shuffle, with policy innovation sacrificed.
    "I fear that privatisation will not get going this year, and that's not good news," she said. Several high-profile selloffs set for this year include electrical utility Latvenergo and Latvian Shipping, an ocean cargo firm.
    Skele's government took power last July after the government of Vilis Krishtopans was brought down in a dispute over fiscal policy. A general election is not scheduled until autumn 2002 and an earlier vote is not expected.
    © 2000 Reuters Ltd.

Russian envoy stunned by silence over human rights abuses in Latvia, Estonia
    GENEVA, April 14 (Itar-Tass) — A Russian envoy to the session of the UN Human Rights Commission was stunned by the silence of the world community over human rights abuses in the Baltic republics of Latvia and Estonia.
    "We are surprised by the absence of the proper reaction of the international community to the dangerous trends in Latvia and Estonia, specifically of the European Union which the countries want so much to join. There is an impression that they do not want to see clear things, that Russians for them are the people of the second grade", Alexander Gusev told the session on Thursday.
    He recalled that the Russian-speaking minority in Latvia and Estonia is deprived of citizenship which is "one of the most refined forms of discrimination". It will take 50 years for 600 thousand Russian speakers, a third of the Latvian population, to get a citizenship at the current rate of naturalization.
    "The problem has not been solved and authorities do not want to solve it. There is not even a hint towards a policy of integration, discrimination of the Russian-speaking population continues", Gusev said.
    He added that the situation with minorities in Estonia "is far from internationally accepted standards". "The situation with military pensioners is absolutely abnormal. Elderly people, who have lived in Estonia for 40-50 years have no right, to get a permament residence permit. The widows of former /Soviet/ servicemen are viewed by authorities through the prism of a security threat to the Estonian state", Gusev said.
    "It is high time for international organizations to explain to Riga and Tallinn that human rights are to be observed", the Russian diplomat said.
    nec/© 1996-2000 ITAR-TASS

Baltic Sea Summit Ends
    STOCKHOLM, April 13 (XINHUA) — Eleven countries round the Baltic Sea and the European Union (EU) ended their third summit in the Danish port of Kolding Thursday after pledging closer cooperation on a range of economic, political and social issues.
    In a final statement, heads of state from the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS) said their region "can become a leading growth area in the new century".
    The CBSS countries agreed to enhance cooperation in the fight against organized crime and decided to prolong the tenure of the task force on organized crime, founded in 1996, for another four years, according to the statement.
    As infectious diseases, such as AIDS and TB, ran rampant in the Baltic Sea region, they also agreed to establish another task force on epidemic diseases so as to strengthen cooperation in this regard, said the document.
    Meanwhile, the heads of state consented to streamline the investment procedures and speed up the clearance of commodities in customs.
    They also agreed to take concerted efforts to guarantee the security of nuclear power plants and nuclear waste.
    The CBSS, set up in 1992 in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden, along with a seat for the European Union.
    Most of the body's 12 members were represented by heads of government, including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek and Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, the EU's executive body.
    Russia however was represented by Economy Minister Andrei Shapovaliants, while Latvia was represented by Foreign Minister Indulis Berzins.
    © 2000 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

Clark says NATO expansion good for Russia too
    TALLINN, April 15 (Reuters) — NATO supreme commander General Wesley Clark said on Saturday enlargement of the western alliance would benefit all of Europe, including Russia.
    Expansion would bring the east the kind of stability western Europe had enjoyed since the end of World War Two, he said in the Estonian capital Tallinn at the end of a two-day visit.
    "We made very clear that we think enlargement is in the interests of all nations in Europe including Russia. After all, what better insurance of security and stability could Russia have than an enlarged NATO," Clark, who retires from his post next month, told journalists.
    NATO's acceptance in 1999 of three former East Bloc states — Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — had been a success and were an encouraging sign for further expansion, Clark said.
    His comments came at a sensitive time in relations between the alliance and Moscow, and were made in a country that wants to join NATO as soon as possible. Moscow is opposed to any of the Baltic states becoming NATO members.
    Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — which regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 — say expansion will bring stability and security, and ensure domination by their larger eastern neighbour will never occur again.
    All three have signed a partnership pact with the United States as a step toward NATO membership. While no timetable has been laid out for expansion, Estonia has set 2002 as the date to meet requirements for NATO membership.
    It will spend 1.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence in 2000, up from 1.4 percent in 1999, and plans to boost spending to 1.8 percent of GDP in 2001 and two percent in 2002.
    © 2000 Reuters Ltd.

Picture Album

Following on our most recent themes of pictures from the past and the coming of spring, this week's picture is a "restored" copy (yellowed background removed) of a picture called "Spring in our Native Land", featured on page 66 of the "Latvian Exiles' Calendar 1947", circulated in the DP camps after the war. You'll notice that the snow is still on the ground!

You can find a complete copy of the calendar, cover to cover, at Latvian Exiles' Calendar, 1947.

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